Scope and Content Note
The Bob Hope papers encompass the breadth of Hope's career in motion pictures, broadcasting, recorded sound, and live entertainment.
Organization of the papers has followed the description given by William Robert Faith, former member of Hope's public relations team and author of the biography Bob Hope: A Life in Comedy. On p. 390 of the 1982 edition of the book, Faith describes the organization of the collection as follows:
"The Bob Hope Joke Files (BHJF), stored in two vaults in the comedian's Toluca Lake estate office, include comedy material dating from vaudeville, radio, film, and numerous personal appearances and benefits of the 1920s and 1930s, and continuing through the most recent television and personal appearances of the 1980s, filed chronologically by show, and cross-filed by subject matter."
"The Bob Hope Personal Files (BHPF), also housed in his Toluca Lake office, include his correspondence and his professional and business records covering half a century."
"The Hope Enterprises Public Relations Files (HEPRF), located in a separate office in Toluca Lake, include fact sheets, biographies, correspondence, press clippings, scrapbooks and photographs that cover the comedian's professional and personal activities for a quarter of a century."
Series 1 encompasses the Bob Hope Joke Files as described by William Faith. The material represents the creative output of Bob Hope and the Hope organization. The working method of Hope's writing staff crystallized with the production of the radio series The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope and maintained the same basic workflow through the decades. Writers would typically be paired off into teams, and each team would submit sheets of jokes on the assigned topics for the week's show. The joke submissions would go through a multi-stage approval process, with checks and circles indicating stages of advancement on the way to the final script. Throughout the joke files, researchers will encounter pages with the headings such as point (pt) sheets, unchecked, checked, and circles, indicating various collations of material for a given broadcast or event. These sheets were further cross-filed by topic for use on future projects.
The following subseries fall under Series 1, Bob Hope Joke Files (BHJF):
Monologues and speeches. For any given project in broadcasting or live appearance, Hope and his writers exterted the greatest effort in the crafting of Hope's monologues. This subseries primarily derives from a set of binders that collated the monologues from Hope's radio and television shows, and charity benefits. In addition, there are speeches from college graduations and other affairs.
Radio. This subseries consists of writer material and scripts for over a thousand radio broadcasts from Bob Hope's radio programs. Hope served as host or master of ceremonies for a succession of programs between 1935 and 1938, namely The Intimate Revue (Bromo Seltzer), The Atlantic Family, The Rippling Rhythm Revue (Woodbury Soap), and Your Hollywood Parade. In the fall of 1938, The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope debuted. The show quickly established a consistent formula based around an opening monologue by Hope, musical segments featuring popular songs of the day (sometimes by regular cast members such as Judy Garland or Frances Langford, sometimes by guest singers), zany comic foils such as Jerry Colonna, Vera Vague, and the team of Brenda and Cobina, interview skits (referred to in the files as "intimates") with Hollywood celebrities, and comedy sketches often centered around a popular song (the "song sketch"). The show reached a significant turning point with the May 6, 1941 broadcast from March Field air base in Riverside, California. Nearly every broadcast for the remainder of the World War II would be from military bases around the continental United States. Hope continued doing these camp shows after the war and for the Berlin crisis of 1948, and the Korean conflict of 1950-1953.The Pepsodent Show lasted for ten years for a total of some 390 broadcasts. It was followed by a succession of shows in a similar format through 1955, under various sponsors. For two seasons, from 1952-1954, Hope also hosted a 15-minute daily morning show for Jell-O. Following the main sequence of programs and skits, there is a sequence of radio skit material that was collated for future use, particularly for repurposing on television shows. The subseries concludes with scripts for radio plays that Hope acted in for such series as Lux Radio Theater and Screen Guild Theater.
Television. This subseries contains the writer material of scripts from Hope's television work. In addition, many of the files, particularly from the 1970's to 1990's contain production material, fan and other correspondence, and publicity material related to individual broadcasts. The first sequence of material deals with the core Bob Hope specials that aired 1950-1996. The earliest specials aired under a variety of umbrella names such as The Star Spangled Revue, Chesterfield Sound-Off Time, and The Colgate Comedy Hour. Later episodes usually aired under some form of the name The Bob Hope Show or or the Bob Hope Special, often with the sponsors name (Buick, Chrsyler, etc.) incorporated. Typically 5-9 specials aired per season, with the only regular series being Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre, which aired 1963-1967. This was an anthology series which aired a variety of teleplays most weeks, with roughly every fourth episode devoted to a comedy variety special starring Hope. After 1975, the specials developed into a series of spectaculars which had unique names. Of particular interested are Hope's broadcasts from Moscow in 1958, and China in 1977, along with the annual series of USO Christmas specials which aired 1954-1972. The first USO tour broadcast for television was from Hope's USO shows in Korea in the fall of 1950. Starting in 1954, Hope began an annual tradition of filming a series of shows each Christmastime at overseas hardhip bases in such places as Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific. The Christmas 1964 tour took Hope to the Vietnam theater for the first time, and he returned every year until 1972. Though the annual tradition ended at this point, Hope would film further tours in Lebanon in the 1980s and Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Following the main sequence of Bob Hope specials, there is a sequence of scripts from the non-variety episodes of the Chrysler Theater, followed by a sequence of Hope's guest appearances on other television series.
Motion pictures. This subseries chiefly consists of scripts from Hope's feature films which he starred in from 1938-1972. The files for the oldest films typically contain little more than a script, but as Hope Enterprises was established and took on a greater role in production, the files contain the same depth of material found in the later television special files.
Personal Appearances. These files contain writer material and scripts for numerous live appearances at charity benefits, tribute dinners, college graduations, and numberless other events. The earliest files also contain material on Hope's USO tours during World War II to Alaska in 1942, the Mediterranean in 1943, the Southeast Pacific in 1944, and Europe in 1945. In addition, this file also contains Hope's guest appearances on radio.
Publications. The subseries consists of manuscripts, galleys, and original artwork for Hope's memoirs and other books. In addition, Hope had a regular newspaper column in the 1940s titled "It Says Here" which grew out of a series of communiques he wrote for the 1944 Southeast Pacific USO tour. Of particular note is an unpublished memoir of Bob Hope's mother Avis, written by his brother Jim.
Song Parades. This is a short file of lyric sheets for various songs used in the above body of work, particularly for Hope's theme song, "Thanks for the Memory," which was frequently customized for events.
File Gags. This is a short file of gags arranged by topic. The material is undated but topical references indicate the material was probably collated sometime in the late 1930s, possibly in the period when the The Pepsodent Show was being developed.
Thematic joke files. This subseries acts like a paper-based database, in that it consists primarily of copies from the material in the various segments above but rearranged according to topic. The headings and list of topics in the finding aid are derived primarily from an index that came with the files.
Thematic joke files, unchecked. This subseries is identical in form to the previous segment, but consists entirely of "unchecked" joke sheets. These were gag material that was rejected but nevertheless collated and arranged by topic for possible future use.
Miscellaneous joke file material. This subseries consists of an assortment of joke material that couldn't find a home in one of the above segments. It includes two distinct files of material from Gig Henry, one of Hope's staff writers.
Series 2 encompasses the Bob Hope Personal Files as described by William Faith. The material contains Hope's personal and business correspondence, letters from soldiers and other fans, and various papers representing the business aspects of Hope's production companies.
The following subseries fall under Series 2, Bob Hope Personal Files (BHPF):
Correspondence. This subseries opens with a set of material that was acquired in May 2018 from Dolores Hope's personal possessions, consisting of letters and cards from Presidents, politicians, and celebrities, as well as the personal love letters between Bob and Dolores Hope from their period of courtship in the early 1930s. Following this is the main sequence of general and business correspondence arranged by year. The last sequence consists of various boxes of correspondence grouped by Hope's staff according to subject, such as soldiers' letters from the World War II, Korean, and Vietnam conflicts, and other topics. Many of the entries contain a DOCFL number indicating the orginal box number as received from Hope's staff.
Vertical file. This subseries consists of three separate alphabetical sequences of correspondence and other material arranged by topic. The earliest sequence contains material from the 1940s-1960s, and the last contains material from the 1980s-1990s. The earliest sequence is particualrly noteworthy for the files it contains concerning various agreements with sponsors, agents, networks, film companies, and other key elements in Hope's entertainment career.
Television production files. This subseries consists of contracts, financial records, correspondence, and other production materials related to television shows from the 1950s to 1980s. Some of the material in this sequence may need to be restricted or redacted due to the presence of personally identifiable information related to persons employed as talent by Hope Enterprises.
Script development file. This subseries consists of scripts and treatments for various unproduced television series and film projects. Of particular note is a large file consisting of material for an unrealized biopic of Walter Winchell that was in development for a number of years, as well as a proposed telefilm depicting the early life of Bob Hope.
Business papers. This subseries consists of miscellaneous correspondence, contracts, bills, and other material related to the running of Hope's businesses. A large sequence at the end consists of bundles of standardized contracts from Hope's law firm, Gang, Tyre, Ramer, and Brown.
Series 3 encompasses the Hope Enterprises Public Relations Files as described by William Faith, as well as a similar body of material maintained in recent decades by the Bob Hope Legacy Foundation. The material in this series was used to market Bob Hope and preserve the entertainer's legacy.
The following subseries fall under Series 3, Hope Enterprises Public Relations Files (HEPRF):
Photographs. This subseries consists of photographic prints representing every phase of Hope's personal and professional life. Researchers interested in any of the files contained in the radio, television, motion pictures, and personal appearance files should consult the photographs subseries for related material. The majority of photographs were scanned and entered into a database maintained by the Bob Hope Lagacy Foundation prior to their acquisition by the Library of Congress. To preserve the connection with that project, the folder numbers used by Hope's staff have been entered into the finding aid, for ease of cross-reference. These numbers consist of a PH prefix followed by a sequential number preceding the folder heading.
Public relations files. The first segments in this series consists of various schedules, itineraries, and lists that serve as useful reference sources for Bob Hope's activities, projects, and achievements. This is followed by a set of files used by Hope Enterprises audiovisual specialist Jim Hardy for a number of home video projects. This final segment consists of a large sequence of files from the office of public relations staffer Ward Grant. The first set of boxes contain fact sheets and press releases from Hope's personal appearances from the 1970s-1990s. The material is arranged alphabetically by city, but otherwise seems to be duplicative of material found in the Personal Appearances subseries above. The remainder of this file consists of an unorganized body of topical folders.
Clippings. This subseries consists of newspaper and magazine clippings, most provided by clipping services. They are arranged in record center cartons by year.
Scrapbooks. This subseries consists of scrapbooks that were processed by Recorded Sound Processing Unit staff circa 2011-2014. The arrangement in this finding aid follows the box numbering set during that time.